In February 2016 two Steppe Whimbrels Numenius phaeopus alboaxillaris were found in Maputo, Mozambique, drawing attention to this little-known bird that was once thought to be extinct.
Their distinctiveness in the field (see right bird on picture together with "normal" Whimbrel) has led to a global taxonomy project that is re-examining the Whimbrel and its close relatives. alboaxillaris may be more than ‘just’ a subspecies, but it is
so little known that it is hard to draw definite conclusions. Gary Allport shares recordings that document the birds in Mozambique.

What is xeno-canto?

xeno-canto is a website dedicated to sharing bird sounds from all over the
world. Whether you are a research scientist, a birder, or simply curious
about a sound that you heard out your kitchen window, we invite you to
listen, download, and explore the bird sound recordings in the collection.

But xeno-canto is more than just a collection of recordings. It is also a
collaborative project. We invite you to share your own bird recordings, help
identify mystery recordings, or share your expertise in the forums. Welcome!

Latest News

May 25, 2019

The XC dataset on GBIF has been updated. More than 2000 of you (fantastic number!) share about 343000 recordings in their collection of thousands of biodiversity metadatasets. Thanks for sharing everyone!

My heart fills with happyness after hear such a great news!!, Thank so much to all xenocanto users for sharing to the GBIF. This is placing xenocanto not only as one of the most extraordinary bird sound collections in the world, but also, as a essential template and tool for doing research, education and conservation; activities completely necessary to ensure the continued survival of the beautiful and unique birds of our planet!!....

You all know James Bradley for his great recordings, mostly from East Africa. Now, he has reviewed and drastically
improved the XC maps for over 250 species that occur in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. As a little example, check out the map of Retz's Helmetshrike.

All kudos to James for this majestic effort! In the process, we have set up a way to handle batches of improved map cut-outs using some standards and guidelines.

We would love to do more similar projects, especially for other parts of Africa, as well as Asia. This is not for the faint-hearted: a deep knowledge of the birds of a country or region is required, as is some computer literacy, access to local literature, and a sense of biogeography. Any takers, please drop us a line at maps@xeno-canto.org.

Thanks for your kind words Rolf, and for the opportunity to contribute to these maps!

James Bradley on April 26

For those interested in checking out some updated East Africa distributions, maps edited include those for species classed as forest dependent birds of Kenya and Uganda (Bennun et al. 1996).

The distribution maps are an integral part of XC thanks to the continued efforts of one man: Rolf de By. For many years now he's kept about 10000 maps up-to-date, fixing errors, catching up with taxonomic changes... Rolf has helped XC to sort out all kinds of other things as well, so we felt we really had no other option than to ask him to formally join the team. And he accepted! So from now on it is Bob, WP, Sander, Jonathon & Rolf.

Thanks & congratulations to Rolf. The maps are so valuable that I often come on XC just to see the maps and that combined with where recordings have taken place is a special type of data.